Need your strategy help playing on "Tough"

So, I beat the AI on "Challenging" and moved on to "Tough". A few interesting things I noticed:

1. AI tends to build small/tiny ship sizes rather than corvette or above. I am not sure if it makes sense maintenance-wise, but AI sure kicked my but in this area. I was building three ship groups with large hulls and it took me a wile to build. When in combat one or two groups of 4-5 smaller ships destroyed all of mine. I am pretty sure that it takes a lot less resources and time to build a large fleet of small craft than small fleet of individually larger ships. Did anyone else notice this?

2. Another thing I noticed on "Tough" is that AI no longer builds weapons in just one category. I constantly encountered fleets with mixed weapons/defences and could not figure our one counter to use. I mean all AI races build mixed weapons so I ended up creating mixes as well, unfortunately for me, large fleets of small craft pretty much knocked me out.

Any thoughts on how to counter mixed weapons/defenses strategy by AI?

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Here is my current strategy which worked so well till crippling (all ai on genius)

1) Go for diplomacy tech early on and don't share them
2) Techtrade with opponents buying their tech and reselling them to all others ai
3) After you've at least 2-3 diplomacy enhancing tech more than your opponent use your huge money reserve accumulated from 2 to buy mining starbase (if mining starbases are owned by minor simply blow them up and then redeclare peace)
4) Try to bribe all the ai to mantain peace beetween themself the longer as possible and in the meantime continue to round robina ll their tech while you enhance your mining starbase (in my last game i controlled 75% of all)
5) When some empire begin to grow a little too much switch to mass produce a fleet (you can also buy it in a couple of turns thanks to your cash reserve)
6) Sneak attack your weakest neighbour, conquer 3-4 planets then make peace whatever the cost
Repeat 5-6 a few times till you eliminate 2-3 AI
7) Now you've a huge empire with a constant flow of cash, possibly a huge tech superiority and developed planet :
Time to wipe all your opposition

Just as a note on crippling i achieved a victory by the time plasme 3 was discovered (i was the only one with large hulls, all the ai still used medium/small).

As for tech i generally find at least for now no need at all to build defence : it cost too much and since i might be considered still in the early game i don't see any necessity to swap a plasma for a durathium armor or so

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(1) Tech trading in key, so start out by research the Universal Translator. Even a trade that favors the other race might help you more in the long run since you can then trade these new techs multiple times to the other races. Building up your diplomacy will help your trading and forge alliances. Also, the minor races will give you better deals than the majors.

(2) Setting up trade routes is not only a good source of income but also helps keep other races from declaing war on you. Boost the value of trade routes with economic starbases.

(3) Getting control of the high quality planets and mining as many resources as possible is key. Build up your starbases to enhance their value and don't forget to fortify them with weapons and defenses!

(4) Until someone has researched "Planetary Invasion" your planets can remain undefended. Rather than build up a large military that will quickly become obsolete, I first build up my economy and fortify my starbases.

(5) SPEED: Getting "Impulse Drive" gives all your ships +1 movement, "Warp Drive" +2 movement, and "HyperWarp Drive" +3 movement. Building the "Graviton Drivers"? project will give you another +1 movement. So even ships without engines can move 5/turn! Speed is key to making sure your battles are fought on your terms. You want to have the attacking advantage and be able to move ships together quickly to form fleets. This way you can get by with less ships and really level up those ships as they gain XP! Mining military resources makes a BIG difference if you also build them up which requires advances in the Factory techs.

Also, the minors races each get 1 high PQ planet (15 from what I have seen) which makes them tempting targets. If they are not allied with a major race, then take their planet.

If you do all the above you will be able to out build and out research the other players putting you in the driver's seat! Build ships with superior weapons and defenses (tuned to their weapons and defenses) and see your fleet wipe out fleet after fleet of theirs, gaining XP. While you are waiting for your troop transports with advanced troop modules, have your fleet pick off your enemies ships, one by one, as they emerge from his starport!

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